Over the years, the escalating monetary value of land and the relative scarcity of premium land for real estate developmental purposes has spawned a need for land to be used as economically as possible. This need has tended to become increasingly acute with respect to service centers, such as certain fast-food restaurants and banks, which have land-intensive drive-thru service facilities. By way of example, a demand has arisen among real estate developers for an efficient and cost-effective way to cluster drive-thru service and counter service fast-food restaurants at "free-standing" locations (i.e. an area which is not occupied by an adjacent shopping mall or other development) or within the vicinity of shopping centers. In a partial effort to satisfy this demand in the shopping mall arena, designers have evolved and implemented the concept of a food court.
The food court usually includes a cluster of restaurants, particularly fast-food restaurants, that dispense food and beverages on a counter service basis. It tends to be located within an area of the mall which is easily accessible to patrons and strategically situated so as to capitalize on patron traffic generated by the anchor stores of the mall.
While the food court has enjoyed considerable success, it has also precipitated a new and unfulfilled demand among mall patrons, proprietors and real estate developers for a food court that has not only counter service, but also drive-thru, capability and which can be effectively situated at "free-standing" locations as well as shopping malls. That is, a substantial number of patrons have an innate penchant for the drive-thru food and beverage service generally provided by an isolated fast-food restaurant that is separately situated at a "free-standing" location. So too with proprietors of fast-food restaurants who typically receive 40 to 60% of their gross sales from drive-thru transactions. Consequently, fast-food restaurant proprietors who are contemplating participation in a pure counter service food court within or near a mall or simply in a pure counter service "free-standing" food court, as opposed to opting for an isolated restaurant at a "free-standing" location, face the prospect of losing a substantial amount of business.
As is well-known, the drive-thru facilities conventionally associated with an isolated fast-food restaurant situated at a "free-standing" location include a vehicular driveway having a menu board, an ordering station, and a collection station located at some point along the driveway. While this arrangement has been successful in dispensing food on a drive-thru basis, it is for all practical purposes unsuitable for use with food courts since it tends to result in a highly inefficient use of land and prohibitively expensive developmental costs. This arrangement would also tend to be equally unsuitable with respect to a cluster of drive-thru banks or with respect to a single bank having multiple stations (i.e. drive-thru teller windows) for providing drive-thru services.
These impediments stem largely from the fact that in "left-side-driver" countries, such as the United States, the driveway conventionally associated with a given "free-standing" fast-food restaurant, or with a given drive-thru bank or the like, is "left-turn-left-side-driver-specific." In the case of a restaurant, for example, a drive-thru patron at a restaurant in such countries typically travels in a counterclockwise direction around a single free-standing restaurant structure, selecting, ordering and collecting his or her food. As such, the periphery of the driveway is situated along the passenger's side of the vehicle as it proceeds through the driveway. This pattern of travel permits the menu board, ordering station and drive-thru collection station all to be situated on the driver's side of the vehicle, thereby making it unnecessary for the patron to leave the driver's seat of the vehicle during any part of the drive-thru process. It also tends to provide for a more efficient tandem traffic pattern among vehicles as they proceed through the drive-thru facility. The geometric properties associated with a "left-turn-left-side-driver-specific" driveway, however, tend to greatly increase the amount of space required for a mall or a "free-standing" location to accommodate a food court containing fast-food restaurants that have both drive-thru and counter service capabilities.
Similar impediments ensue in "right-side-driver" countries, such as Great Britain and Japan, where the driveway conventionally associated with a given "free-standing" fast-food restaurant (or with a given drive-thru bank or the like) is "right-turn-right-side-driver-specific." For example, a drive-thru patron at a restaurant of this nature typically travels in his or her vehicle in a clockwise direction between selecting, ordering and collecting his or her cuisine. This pattern of travel again results in the menu board, ordering station and drive-thru collection station to be situated on the driver's side of the vehicle with advantages and disadvantages similar to that described above for "left-side-driver" countries.
It will be understood that the term "left-turn-left-side-driver-specific" refers to the situation where the driver's side of the vehicle is situated on the vehicle's left side as observed from the frame of reference of an observer seated inside the vehicle and looking toward the vehicle's dashboard. Conversely, the term "right-turn-right-side-driver-specific" refers to the case where the driver's side of the vehicle is situated on the vehicle's right side as observed from the frame of reference of an observer seated inside the vehicle and looking toward the vehicle's dashboard.
It should, therefore, be appreciated that there has existed a definite need in both "left-side-driver" and "right-side-driver" countries for a driver interaction center, and for a method of operating such a center, which has facilities that provide both counter service and drive-thru service without at the same time unacceptably increasing traffic congestion, necessitating prohibitively large additional monetary expenditures, causing a highly uneconomical use of available land, or requiring the driver seeking drive-thru service to leave his seat during any point of the drive-thru process.